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Breasts and Eggs
59,000 TNDOn a hot summer’s day in a poor suburb of Tokyo we meet three women: thirty-year-old Natsuko, her older sister Makiko, and Makiko’s teenage daughter Midoriko. Makiko, an ageing hostess despairing the loss of her looks, has travelled to Tokyo in search of breast enhancement surgery. She’s accompanied by her daughter, who has recently stopped speaking, finding herself unable to deal with her own changing body and her mother’s self-obsession.
Her silence dominates Natsuko’s rundown apartment, providing a catalyst for each woman to grapple with their own anxieties and their relationships with one another. Eight years later, we meet Natsuko again. She is now a writer and finds herself on a journey back to her native city, returning to memories of that summer and her family’s past as she faces her own uncertain future.
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Cherries on a Pomegranate Tree
59,000 TNDIn one-child China, when a mother runs from home because of her illegal pregnancy, it’s Kong Fanhua’s problem. She’s the only female village chief in Xiushui County, and her day-to-day tasks range from the mundane to the near-impossible: tracking down this runaway who left her twins behind, keeping rumours of a vengeful ghost at bay while trying to convince some rich American to invest in the local paper plant. Not to mention looking after her own farm and family.
After all, the crops aren’t going to plant themselves. While the incompetent men in local government fail to get much done, Fanhua picks up the slack. But when higher-ups start investigating her hometown’s birth quotas just as she’s up for re-election, the squeeze is on.
Can she keep all the plates spinning? Or will she resort to villainous tactics to preserve the peace? And why won’t her lazy husband shut up about camels?
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Chronicle of a Blood Merchant
69,000 TNDFrom the acclaimed author of Brothers and China in Ten Words: here is Yu Hua’s unflinching portrait of life under Chairman Mao. A cart-pusher in a silk mill, Xu Sanguan augments his meager salary with regular visits to the local blood chief. His visits become lethally frequent as he struggles to provide for his wife and three sons at the height of the Cultural Revolution. Shattered to discover that his favorite son was actually born of a liaison between his wife and a neighbor, he suffers his greatest indignity, while his wife is publicly scorned as a prostitute. Although the poverty and betrayals of Mao’s regime have drained him, Xu Sanguan ultimately finds strength in the blood ties of his family. With rare emotional intensity, grippingly raw descriptions of place and time, and clear-eyed compassion, Yu Hua gives us a stunning tapestry of human life in the grave particulars of one man’s days.
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Convenience Store Woman
49,000 TNDShe’s 36 years old, has never had a boyfriend, and she’s been working in the same supermarket for eighteen years. Keiko’s family wishes she’d get a proper job. Her friends wonder why she won’t get married.
But Keiko knows what makes her happy, and she’s not going to let anyone come between her and her convenience store… A cult hit around the world, Convenience Store Woman is both a feminist rallying cry and a must-read oddball comedy. ‘Exhilaratingly weird and funny… -
Counterattacks at Thirty (Nomad Edition) : A Novel
59,000 TNDFrom the bestselling author of Almond, The Devil Wears Prada meets The Office in this witty, humane, and ultimately transformative story of a group of young workers who rebel against the status quo, now available in a convenient pocket-sized portable Nomad Edition. Jihye is an ordinary woman who has never been extraordinary. In her administrative job at the Academy, she silently tolerates office politics and the absurdities of Korean bureaucracy.
Forever only one misplaced email away from career catastrophe, she effectively becomes a master of the silent eye-roll and the tactical coffee run. But all her efforts to endure her superiors and the semi-hostile work environment they create are upended when a new intern, Gyuok Lee, arrives. Like a pacifist version of V in V for Vendetta, Gyuok recruits a trio of office allies to carry out plans for minor revenge.
Together, these four “rebels” commit tiny protests against those in more powerful positions through spraying graffiti, throwing eggs, and writing anonymous exposés. But as their attacks increase, the initial joy they felt at the release becomes something more and Jihye and the others will discover the beauty of friendship and the extraordinary power of unity against adversity.
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Days at the Morisaki Bookshop
59,000 TNDWhen twenty-five-year-old Takako’s boyfriend reveals he’s marrying someone else, she reluctantly accepts her eccentric uncle Satoru’s offer to live rent-free in the tiny room above his shop. Hidden in Jimbocho, Tokyo, the Morisaki Bookshop is a booklover’s paradise.
On a quiet corner in an old wooden building, the shop is filled with hundreds of second-hand books. It is Satoru’s pride and joy, and he has devoted his life to the bookshop since his wife left him five years earlier. Hoping to nurse her broken heart in peace, Takako is surprised to encounter new worlds within the stacks of books lining the shop.
And as summer fades to autumn, Satoru and Takako discover they have more in common than they first thought. The Morisaki bookshop has something to teach them both about life, love, and the healing power of books. Quirky, beautifully written, and movingly profound, Days at the Morisaki Bookshop will appeal to readers of Before The Coffee Gets Cold, The Cat Who Saved Books, and anyone who has had to recover from a broken heart.
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Days at the Torunka Cafe
69,000 TNDSet in the back alleys of Yanaka, Tokyo, is a small café called Trnka. It’s here, every Sunday, that a mysterious woman appears. What is the story between her and the part-time barista? What is the relationship between a middle-aged man and a despairing young woman? And how can the shop owner’s daughter, Shizuku, express her love for her classmate?
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Dead-End Memories
49,000 TNDThe daughter of a restaurant owner experiences a budding romance, accompanied by the ghosts of an elderly couple. After a scandalous near-death experience, an editor gains a new lease of life. A woman seeks refuge in the apartment above her uncle’s bar after being betrayed by her fiancé.
As Yoshimoto’s gentle, effortless prose reminds us, one true miracle can be as simple as having someone to share a meal with, and happiness is always within us if only we take a moment to see it. -
Deep River
69,000 TNDA group of Japanese tourists journey to the sacred River Ganges, each on a secret personal pilgrimage. Widower Isobe mourns for the devoted wife he neglected; gentle children’s writer Numanda seeks out the bird he believes saved his life; Kiguchi is haunted by his time as a soldier along the Highway of Death; and Mitsuko reconnects with the classmate she tempted away from the church and cruelly discarded.
At the softly lapping shores of the river – where the faithful come to bathe during their final moments – self-knowledge is sought and memories put to rest. Set against a rich backdrop of 90s India, Deep River is a beautifully moving story showing Endo at the height of his powers as a chronicler of religious experience.
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Desire
39,000 TNDYou’ve just passed someone on the street who could be the love of your life, the person you’re destined for – what do you do? In Murakami’s world, you tell them a story. The five weird and wonderful tales collected here each unlock the many-tongued language of desire, whether it takes the form of hunger, lust, sudden infatuation or the secret longings of the heart. Selected from Haruki’s Murakami’s short story collections The Elephant Vanishes, Blind Willow Sleeping Woman, Men Without WomenVINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS.
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Diary of a Cat
79,000 TNDThe perfect cosy read for 2025 – cats and food come together as the seasons changeMeet Chimaki and Norimaki – two young cats lost in the sprawling metropolis of Tokyo, sniffing out cat-lovers who might be kind enough give them a ride or place to sleep for the night . . .
Until they find a new home with the Horai family, an eccentric assortment of artists, dreamers and caterers who have one thing in common: their love of good food. Inspired by the bougie magazine column written by Madam Horai, Chimaki decides to keep his own diary, inviting us in to share the family’s meals and activities, his younger brother’s comical scrapes, and the movements of a mysterious stranger around the house. His journal follows the change of the seasons from early spring to midwinter, with each entry featuring all kinds of delectable dishes and a wealth of Japanese culinary lore.
Playful, gentle and curiously addictive, Diary of a Cat offers intriguing glimpses into Japanese culture on every page, recipes to follow and characters to fall in love with – all through the eyes of an endearingly curious cat. Translated from the Japanese by Yui Kajita
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Diary of a Void
59,000 TNDFor the sake of women everywhere, Ms Shibata is going to pull off the mother of all deceptions… ‘Incredibly thought-provoking… you’ll love Yagi’s writing’ STYLISTMs Shibata refuses to clear away the coffee at work one day, because she’s pregnant and can’t bear the smell.
The only thing is . . .
Ms Shibata is not pregnant. Being a mother-to-be isn’t easy. Ms Shibata has a nine-month ruse to keep up.
Before long, it becomes all-absorbing, and with the help of towel-stuffed shirts and a diary app that tracks every stage of her ‘pregnancy’, the boundary between her lie and her life begins to dissolve. Discover this prizewinning, thrillingly subversive new novel that’s perfect for fans of Convenience Store Woman and Breasts and Eggs. ‘A subversive, surreal read that will strike a cord’ RED’One of the most passionate cases I’ve ever read for female interiority, for women’s creative pulse and rich inner life’ NEW YORKERTranslated from the Japanese by David Boyd and Lucy North